You see, I have a Fitbit Tracker, this new bobby -pin of a device (OK it is bigger than a bobby-pin … it actually resembles a small plastic tampon, sprayed black).

It’s this kind of cool, electronic, techy, tracking gadget, but it does sorta’ remind me why I find cell phones a hassle.

There’s all that plugging — and charging — and checking if people know you are alive — and battery-life-checking that makes a toddler look easier to deal with all day.

Anyways, I have this Fitbit clip-thingy and it tracks how much I walk everyday, how I sleep at night … and other fun stuff.

The reason I started tracking myself like Google is tracking you is because it’s the best way (for me) to gauge how well I am doing at taking care of myself. It has this website it syncs up to that tracks everything from how long you sat in that chair eating, to how many times you roll over in bed. If you enter your food it will track your calories.

Did you know that coffee isn’t breakfast?

And then …

Somewhere around 2:00pm today I lost the Fitbutt.

Suddenly it wasn’t clipped to my bra anymore and I had to feel around to make sure it wasn’t buried under the girls.

Nope.

Gone.

I did a quick tour of my place — hoping to find it on the floor, but nope.

How in the chocolate-hell am I suppose to write a post about telling you to start tracking your life when I’ve lost my tracker half -way through this first day with you on this?

No wonder I never wear earrings anymore.

Here’s the deal. We thyroid-gals like to hold our doctors feet to the fire. We don’t like them strictly treating us by our numbers, yet we are first to ask each other what our numbers are.

You and I both know that our “numbers” don’t tell the whole truth about who we are, or what we are doing…

How much sugar do you eat? Do you really know? Is there sugar in your mustard?

What time are you going to bed at night? I mean trying to fall asleep — not the chatting on the phone, with the computer in your lap kind of try to sleep either. Is it 10:00 on Monday night, 12:00 on Tuesday, 11:30 on Wednesday, 9:30 on Thursday, and so forth with no rhythm to your rest time?

Do you eat just before you go to bed? A half hour before? Once a week before bed? Every night?

How much do you walk? Relax? Laugh?

How often do you do something for you?

How much coffee? How much stress?

How much alcohol?

Cigarettes?

If we are willing to track part of our lives for a week we will begin to see a pattern. And that pattern might be able to begin to answer what else might be sideways in your life. Too much of one thing and not enough of another may be adding to some lingering issues.

The sugar and/or alcohol could be what relaxes you at the end of a stressful day because you can’t relax on your own.

Maybe exercise makes you more tired, but you sleep better at night when you get some. In tracking yourself you soon realize that a small walk, or a stretching session before bed, or a bike ride in after dinner is the perfect way to wind you into bed.

Maybe you start out just doing this one night a week.

You may find that there are days when you eat your lunch later and have more energy in the afternoon. You may be surprised by what you are eating and when you are eating it. (Wow did I really eat three cups of almonds and coffee for my lunch?)

Do you snack while cooking dinner because you don’t eat enough all day and are starving to death as soon as you walk through your front door?

Don’t know? Is your husband nodding?

Tracking our habits helps us decode the patterns in our lives. Let’s face it, we are all busier than deodorizer in a boy’s room, so subtle clues about our lives can fall through the cracks, especially if we are the ones always taking care of everyone.

Tracking aides us in confiding to our doctors what is really going on with us — not just what we think we need to tell them.

Let’s give those doctors a bigger window into our life.

If you are super-busy, or super-tired, or super-both, try writing 6 words that express your day. You can even tweet them on Twitter.

Like…

Coffee. Bread. Coffee. Pissed. Wine. Kiss.

Needed jumper cables all day. Martini.

Sugar made me smile. Crappy sleep.

Good sleep. Happy. Walk. Relaxed. Smile.

Stupid girl online making me think.

You don’t have to track it on Fitbit (mine was given to me by my friend Heather — I am not a sponsor for the company. But if they want to send me one of those new pink ones I won’t turn them down). You probably have an app that can do this for you too.

I’ll make a promise to you. I will track my shit all week and share it with you next Monday. And you can see if you see any patterns in my life. I may be doing the tweet method if I don’t find that Fitbit.

If you want to track yours and share what you find I would love to hear from you.

If you know any Catholics — have them ask St. Anthony to find my Fitbit for me — thanks.

Share and Enjoy

Better yet, you get to hear it from a man who has probably seen you naked in a paper gown that makes you look like a decorated door.

Your toenail paint was probably chipping and you had dry heels. You probably felt like crap.

Then you are told what you are going to have to do.

I get it.

The idea of taking tiny pills everyday for the rest of my life bugged the ever-living shit out of me (excuse me mom I will be swearing here, but I do love you) when this all began.

It made me very angry, in fact.

Then I began thinking about the years that I was on the birth control pill before my husband and I decided we wanted kids — before all that trying and failing (a total mystery to the doctors why I couldn’t get pregnant — I’m sure you know the drill) — I took that pill everyday, along with my vitamins, along with even bigger vitamins when I was pregnant without much thought — so what was I tripping about?

A pill is a pill.

This is your crazy, thyroid mind. It just won’t “chill.”

I think this disease goes after A-type personalities like us because we refuse to slow down. We are terrible at saying no and letting other people pick up the slack . When we finally do get mad it’s an all-or-nothing battle. No wonder our doctors want to medicate us.

When we find out that our thyroid is sputtering out we still won’t make ourselves slow down. We have to do it all.

Our bodies, mad-as-hell at us, eventually puts up a speed-bump in the way of our all-encompassing to-do lists. Sometimes our bodies begin to resemble speed bumps if we push ourselves until we drop.

Are you hearing me girls?

We can’t eat the same rich foods, or drink martinis and red-wine, followed by chocolate or carbohydrates like we used to. We can’t take care of our families for 35-days straight while working full-time and keeping a clean kitchen.

This disease is a gas-tank disease.

Meaning: we can’t run our lives on empty anymore. There is no more running our lives on the fumes of coffee.

And the flip-side of this is that we have to fight from becoming couch potatoes. Just because we may feel like the rest of the world feels when they are coming down with the flu — we must get up and face the day.

I don’t care if you have to walk your dog in your pj’s. You have to get up and make yourself move. Even if you can only go to the mailbox. Try going to the mailbox 5 times.

Then sit in the sun if you can. Read a book. Take a bath. Take in some deep breaths. Smell a flower. Look at the sky. Feel the raindrops. Taste the snow. Imagine good sex.

There are two people inside of you (our lovers will probably agree with this — in fact they are applauding). There is the little thyroid girl who feels sick and wants to be taken care of and always have her way — and there is the much older, wiser, brilliant wishing-to-be-healthy woman who whispers in your ear what you should be doing.

You know, telling you those things that are good for you while trying to talk over the little thyroid girl who insists she can handle just …. one more drink; one more piece of chocolate; one more day on the couch; one more clean bathroom; one more email …

Because when you push yourself too far into doing things that are not in support of your thyroid then thyroid-thinking girl comes out. She will throw a fit and try and have you believe that those sad, agitated thoughts in your head are true — she will ignore your acid reflux response at 2 in the morning and try to get you to have a cookie.

“You’ll sleep better!” thyroid-girl promises.

And the reason she’s even talking to you is because you’ve gone to bed every night this week past midnight and started your days at 6:00am, skipping breakfasts and eating lunch in your car — she having her meltdown and she wants you to make her feel better.

You know that if you give in she will shut up and you will maybe get some restful sleep. You are praying for just one night of restorative sleep.

But if you do, then you will wake up tomorrow deep in thyroid thoughts, feeling like crap craving gluten-infused or sugar-infused foods.

Your wise-self will be trying to nudge you to take better care of yourself.

Are you going to listen to the wise you, or just keep on listening to the little thyroid girl and not get involved in helping yourself feel better?

Do something this week that pampers the wise you — like just drinking more water.